Nasscom seeks review of licensing rule for PCs, other equipment

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Nasscom has requested the government to put in abeyance and review its decision to impose licensing requirements for the import of laptops, all-in-one-personal computers and certain other electronic equipment as it will hit the $245 billion Indian IT sector severely. Nasscom has written to the government on this and is in discussion with the industry to “understand in greater detail the challenges that are being anticipated” so that those could be shared with the government, Nasscom vice president and head of public policy Ashish Aggarwal said.

“We understand that there is no ban on the import. However, the requirement of obtaining licences is a cause for concern for the industry as this is seen as creating uncertainty as to whether they will be able to import the items as per their needs and the red tape that may get created,” Aggarwal said in response to queries by ET.

Considering the local capacity to manufacture these products — especially certain servers used by the software industry that are not even made in India — “any restriction or compliance burden on account of the licence-led imports can be onerous for the industry”, he said. Earlier this week, ET reported that major global electronics companies such as Apple, Dell, HP and Acer have sought an extension of nine months to a year of the deadline for the import licences required for the devices.

Representatives of these companies had met minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar and senior officials from the IT ministry on Tuesday and apprised them of the problems and challenges that are likely to arise due to the licensing requirements, sources had then told ET. Through a notification issued last week, the Directorate General of Foreign